"Etali , The Primal storm:Feeding off your mind."

"Etali , The Primal Storm:Feeding off your mind."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

Magic players want a lot of things and most of the time they want those things for free like casting impossibly expensive mana cost cards or gigantic creatures for example. And there is one Elder Dinosaur that would let you do just that. Etalli.

So for 4 generic mana and 2 Red ones you can cast this 6/6 Legendary creature. Now those stats doesn't seem all that impressive when compared to the biggest dinosaur of this set which is Ghalta but Etali makes up more with a very fun triggered ability that could either illicit howls of laughter or howls of frustration from your playgroupmates. I am actually predicting the former.

So what is this triggered ability? When Etali attacks , not when it damages. Just by attacking you get to exile the top card of each your opponents Library.In 1 v 1 this would be nice but when you put this in an EDH multiplayer setting then you can see a lot of bonker things that Etali could do. The great part about those exiled cards is that you MAY play then without paying their mana costs! 

Notice that I emphasized MAY. This actually gives you a choice on which cards to stack and cast , if you happen to exile a mass removal spell you are not forced to cast it and destroy your advantage.(in case you are ahead but with Etali out it seems that you are ahead).

I was wondering what a Sailodon would be able to do and it seems that mana and magic seem to come of it so that you could easily sling spells. And except for lands you could actually cast all of the spells that are available to you. Basically if your opponent has ramp then you have ramp and if they put planeswalkers in their decks then there is a chance that you would be able to cast that as well for free.

So basically you just need to be aware of what spells to cast and the need to protect Etali from unwanted removal. PR kit give me this dino! Please!